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How can I stop fainting?

Fed up with the faints that bolstered her fragile young snowflake image, Gwen Smith sought expert medical help to keep her upright in trying situations.

The Garden

We explore ideas of belonging and colonial legacies, guerrilla gardening in response to a tragic event, and the link between an urban nature reserve and a GP’s surgery.

Our Covid complicity

Athena Stevens thought she had a cold that she tried to ignore, but it turned out to be Covid-19. Here she reflects on how we have all put ourselves and others at risk with the choices we’ve made during this pandemic.

Obesity and Britain’s boys

Six young men and six experiences of being overweight. Find out how these boys and their loved ones feel about this stigmatising issue.

Self-obsessing in the age of selfies

The tiny, joyful spark of a social media ‘like’ can lead to a damaging obsession. Find out how far people will go when their phone addiction gets the upper hand.

Sharing Nature: Plastic fantastic

There are serious concerns about plastics in the environment. Yet they make our lives much easier, even in the natural world.

How electromagnetic therapy inspired me

Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.

Active pensioners, blooming gardens

To reach your 70s with over 300,000 Twitter followers or running a music festival is not the stereotypical image of retirement. But does this energetic engagement with life equal happiness?

Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug

Today, cocaine has a very poor public image as one of the causes of crime and violence. But for the Victorians it was welcomed as the saviour of modern surgery.

Generation portraits

Photographer Julian Germain’s major project focusing on portraits of multi-generational families came to a sudden halt during the various Covid-19 lockdowns. Here families celebrate coming together again in words and images.

An animated almanac for the modern world

Discover why Thomas Coleman wanted to make a medieval folding almanac relevant to the modern world and see the film for yourself.

Sharing Nature: Over the rainbow

Here’s your choice of the most meaningful nature photo on the theme of health.

Interpreting the Ayurvedic Man

A British Sign Language video is the latest interpretation of an unique 18th-century Nepali painting about Ayurvedic medicine.

The man who remembers everything

Tilney1 can remember his life in minute detail, but can’t control the incessant intrusion of thoughts and images from the past. As cuts to mental health services isolate him more and more, a crisis approaches.

Mask, ritual and fertility

Today many of us learn about fertility, conception and pregnancy online. But that wasn’t always the way. Discover how masks and rituals played an important educational role.

The Key to Memory: Write it down

Nick Dent explores what the Library of the Human Genome can tell us about how and why we remember.

Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages

The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.

The Key to Memory: Use art to articulate

Danny Rees explains what William Utermohlen’s self-portraits can tell us about how and why we remember.

The Key to Memory: Follow your nose

Elissavet Ntoulia explores what a pair of pomanders can tell us about how and why we remember.

The Key to Memory: Mark it out

Sarah Bentley explores what a papier-mâché figure from Japan can tell us about how and why we remember.

Daniel Regan on using photography to manage emotions

Artist Daniel Regan manages his emotions and stays grounded through photography, allowing him to engage in the world around him.

Titans in the landscape

How wartime propaganda encouraged Brits to wear masks

Unlike the UK government today, Churchill’s War Ministry presented a united front on the efficacy of mask-wearing to protect people from illness. And a 1941 propaganda film helped, with striking images created using the new art of electronic flash photography.

A freezer full of breastmilk

When new mum Alev Scott began pumping her milk between feeds, she soon found she was freezing more breastmilk than her baby would ever need. So Alev began to investigate ways to share her oversupply.

How stories bring us together

Elif Shafak considers how hard it is to be heard in our divided world, but how listening can nurture wisdom, connection and empathy.